GOVERNMENT backbenchers in Guildford and Woking may fall foul of voters after coming out in strong support of controversial proposals to soften the law on the potentially lethal party drug ecstasy.

Woking MP Humfrey Malins was one of three Tory MPs sitting on the Parliamentary select committee which recommended softening restrictions on the drug, and said he strongly supported all the recommendations of the report – including making ecstasy possession no more serious than amphetamines.

And Guildford’s MP, Sue Doughty (Lib Dem) has also backed the reclassification of ecstasy as a class B drug, although Home Secretary David Blunkett almost immediately ruled out any downgrading.

“Nearly all of the key conclusions of this report are steps in the right direction,” she said, while also reiterating her backing to changing cannabis to a class C drug.

“I want to see considerably less drug use. However, drugs policy has failed badly in Britain.

“The committee has made an important contribution to the open and honest debate that we urgently need to make the changes necessary to cut drug deaths and drug crime in this country.”

Peter Fahy, Surrey Deputy Chief Constable and chairman of the county’s Drug Action Team, supported the emphasis on treatment for drug use, but described the other measures – including ecstasy reclassification, as a “distraction”.

He said Surrey Police wanted to concentrate resources on the drugs that do the most harm, including heroin and crack cocaine.

“It has become clear that there need to be complementary policies on reducing availability of drugs, prevention and education for young people and making treatment more readily available,” he said.

“This select committee report is placing significant emphasis on the need to get drug users into treatment and this is an approach we have been actively supporting in Surrey.

“It remains to be seen whether we are given sufficient resources to deliver effectively on this aspiration.

“There has got to be a distinction between making large amounts of money and passing it (drugs) to a friend,” he said in support of changes to the type of offences.

But he welcomed the thrust of the report aimed at medical treatment for drug addicts and stressed that the report’s message was that “all drugs are dangerous”.

Mr Malins said: “There is a large difference between five of us going out and buying £20 worth of drugs and giving each of my four friends a shot for the same price.” He was “very disappointed” that Mr Blunkett had immediately rejected the plan to downgrade ecstasy, which he supported.

“There is no doubt that the danger and harm of cocaine and heroin are much greater than ecstasy.”

He also declined to support amendments put forward by fellow Tory MP, Angela Watkinson, to prevent downgrading ecstasy and cannabis.

And Mr Malins admitted to missing “two to three” meetings due to his front bench duties for legislation on asylum and immigration, although he read all the committee papers, he said.

Mole Valley MP Sir Paul Beresford (Con) said: “Select committees are not always right and Home Secretaries are not always wrong.

“People I speak to in Surrey as a whole wouldn’t support it.”

It would be a “terrible risk” to implement the recommendations of the report and he was “very cautious” on many of the proposals and opposed to the changes in classifications for cannabis and ecstasy.

The national director of Life Education Centres, Stephen Burgess, who lives in Normandy, said he wanted to see more proposals put forward to deal with young people to prevent them getting involved in drugs – rather than just measures to help the 250,000 problem drug users across the country.